1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to network systems for exchanging data across a shared medium. More particularly, the invention is a wireless communication network system for isochronous data transfer between node devices of the network system that provides at least one master node device which manages the data transmission between slave node devices of the network system, and which further provides a time division multiple access frame definition which provides each node device on the network system a transmit time slot for communication.
2. The Prior Art
Network systems for data communication exchange have been evolving for the past several decades. Particularly, computer network systems have been developed to exchange information and provide resource sharing. Network systems generally comprise one or more node devices which are interconnected and capable of communicating. The most common network systems today are “wired” local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). Normally, node devices participating in such wired networks are physically connected to each other by a variety of transmission medium cabling schemes including twisted pair, coaxial cable, fiber optics and telephone systems including time division switches (T-1, T-3), integrated services digital network (ISDN), and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL). While wired solutions provide adequate bandwidth or data throughput between node devices on the network, users participating in such networks are generally restricted from mobility. Typically, users participating in a wired network are physically limited to a specific proximity by the length of the cable attached to the user's node device.
Many common network protocols in use today are asynchronous and packet based. One of the most popular is Ethernet or IEEE 802.3. These types of networks are optimized for bursts of packetized information with dynamic bandwidth requirements settled on-demand. This type of network works well for many data intensive applications in computer networks but is not ideal for situations requiring consistent delivery of time-critical data such as media streams.
Media streams typically require connection oriented real-time traffic. Most media stream applications need to establish a required level of service. Dedicated connections are required with a predictable throughput. Low traffic jitter is often a necessity and can be provided with the use of a common network clocking reference.
Firewire, or IEEE 1394, is an emerging wireline network technology that is essentially asynchronous, but provides for isochronous transfers or “sub-actions”. Isochronous data is given priority, but consistent time intervals of data transfer is limited by mixing isochronous and purely asynchronous transfers.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a popular standard for computer peripheral connections. USB supports isochronous data transfer between a computer and peripheral devices. The computer serves as bus master and keeps the common clock reference. All transfers on USB must either originate or terminate at the bus master, so direct transfers between two peripheral devices is not supported.
Wireless transmission provides mobile users the ability to connect to other network devices without requiring a physical link or wire. Wireless transmission technology provides data communication through the propagation of electromagnetic waves through free space. Various frequency segments of the electromagnetic spectrum are used for such transmission including the radio spectrum, the microwave spectrum, the infrared spectrum and the visible light spectrum. Unlike wired transmission, which is guided and contained within the physical medium of a cable or line, wireless transmission is unguided, and propagates freely though air. Thus the transport medium air in wireless communication is always shared between various other wireless users. As wireless products become more pervasive, the availability of airspace for data communication becomes proportionally more limited.
Radio waves travel long distances and penetrate solid objects and are thus useful for indoor and outdoor communication. Because radio waves travel long distances, radio interference between multiple devices is a common problem, thus multiple access protocols are required among radio devices communicating using a single channel. Another common problem associated with wireless transmission is multi-path fading. Multipath fading is caused by divergence of signals in space. Some waves may be refracted off low-lying atmospheric layers or reflected off objects such as buildings and mountains, or indoors off objects such as walls and furniture and may take slightly longer to arrive than direct waves. The delayed waves may arrive out of phase with the direct waves and thus strongly attenuate or cancel the signal. As a result of multipath fading, operators have resorted to keeping a percentage of their channels idle as spares when multipath fading wipes out some frequency band temporarily.
Infrared communication is widely used for short-range communication. The remote controls used on televisions, VCRs, and stereos all use infrared communication. The major disadvantage to infrared waves is that they do not pass through solid objects, thus limiting communication between devices to “line of sight”. These drawbacks associated with the current implementation of wireless technology in network systems have resulted in mediocre performance and periodic disruption of operations.
In addition to the above noted drawbacks of Firewire and USB, there are currently no standards for wireless implementations of either. Of the wireless networks in use today, many are based at least in part on the IEEE 802.11 (wireless ethernet) extension to IEEE 802.3. Like wireless ethernet, this system is random access, using a carrier sense multiple access with collision detect (CSMA-CD) scheme for allowing multiple transmitters to use the same channel. This implementation suffers from the same drawback of wireline ethernet described above.
A similar implementation intended for industrial use is that of Hyperlan™. While still an asynchronous protocol, Hyperlan™ uses priority information to give streaming media packets higher access to the random access channel. This implementation reduces, but does not eliminate the problems of sending streaming media across asynchronous networks.
The Home-RF consortium is currently working on a proposal for a wireless network specification suitable for home networks. The current proposal specifies three types of wireless nodes, the connection points (CP), isochronous devices (I-nodes), and asynchronous devices (A-nodes). Isochronous transfers on the Home-RF network are intended for 64-kbps voice (PSTN) services and are only allowed between I-node devices and the CP device that is connected to the PSTN network. There is no allowance in the Home-RF specification for alternative methods of isochronous communication such as might be required for high quality audio or video.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group™ has developed a standard for a short range low bit-rate wireless network. This network standard does overcome some of the shortcomings of random access networks, but still lacks some of the flexibility needed for broadband media distribution. The Bluetooth network uses a master device which keeps a common clock for the network. Each of the slave devices synchronizes their local clock to that of the master, keeping the local clock within +/−10 microseconds (μsecs). Data transfer is performed in a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) format controlled by the master device. Two types of data links are supported: Synchronous Connection Oriented (SCO) and Asynchronous Connection-Less (ACL). The Master can establish a symmetric SCO link with a slave by assigning slots to that link repeating with some period Tsco. ACL links between the master and slave devices are made available by the Master addressing slave devices in turn and allowing them to respond in the next immediate slot or slots. Broadcast messages are also allowed originating only at the master with no direct response allowed from the slave devices.
Several limitations exist in the Bluetooth scheme. All communication links are established between the master device and the slave devices. There are no allowances for slave-slave communication using either point-to-point or broadcast mechanisms. Additionally, isochronous communications are only allowed using symmetric point-to-point links between the master device and one slave device. The TDMA structure used by Bluetooth is also limiting in that slot lengths are set at N*625 μsecs where N is an integer 0<=1<=5.
All of the above wireless network schemes use some form of continuous wave (CW) communications, typically frequency hopping spread spectrum. The drawbacks of these systems are that they suffer from multipath fading and use expensive components such as high-Q filters, precise local high-frequency oscillators, and power amplifiers.
Win et. al. have proposed using time-hopping spread spectrum multiple access (TH-SSMA), a version of Ultra-Wide Band (UWB), for wireless extension of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks which is described in the article to Win, Moe Z., et. al. entitled “ATM-Based TH-SSMA Network for Multimedia PCS” published in “IEEE Journal on selected areas in communications”, Vol. 17, No. May 5, 1999. Their suggestion is to use TH-SSMA as a wireless “last hop” between a wireline ATM network and mobile devices. Each mobile device would have a unique connection to the closest base station. Each mobile-to-base connection would be supplied with a unique time hopping sequence. Transfers would happen asynchronously with each node communicating with the base at any time using a unique hopping sequence without coordinating with other mobile devices.
There are significant drawbacks to the TH-SSMA system for supporting media stream transfers between devices of the network. This method is designed to link an external switched wireline network to mobile nodes, not as a method of implementing a network of interconnected wireless nodes. This method relies on the external ATM network to control the virtual path and virtual connections between devices. Base stations must be able to handle multiple simultaneous connections with mobile devices, each with a different time hopping sequence, adding enormously to the cost and complexity of the base station. Transfers between mobile devices must travel through the base station using store and forward. Finally, all mobile nodes are asynchronous, making truly isochronous transfers impossible.
Accordingly, there is a need for a wireless communication network system apparatus which provides for isochronous data transfer between node devices of the network, which provides at least one master node device which manages the data transmission between the other node devices of the network, and which provides a means for reducing random errors induced by multipath fading, and which further provides communication protocol to provide a means for sharing the transport medium between the node devices of the network so that each node device has a designated transmit time slot for communicating data. The present invention satisfies these needs, as well as others, and generally overcomes the deficiencies found in the background art.